Armored
Saint is the ultimate side project. Despite increasing popularity from
their 1982 inception through the early 1990s as a result of
good-to-excellent long players, Armored Saint called it quits when
vocalist John Bush joined Anthrax and bassist Joey Vera joined Fates
Warning (among other bands). Armored Saint reunited to write an album
when Anthrax was on hiatus (2000’s "Revelation”) and now that the
members’ other high profile commitments have finally subsided Armored
Saint is back ten years on with "La Raza.” The album combines twenty
year old L.A. "Crue” rock with some modern touches and is pretty good,
which makes it disappointing.

Album opener "Loose Cannon” starts
with a clave tapping out a Salsa rhythm, which is the first of many
Latin touches on "La Raza.” The clave is soon buried by strings and a
more standard intro, however. Vera’s bass crawl and power chords start
the song itself off and the salsa rhythm and string melody from the
intro carry over nicely. An Armored Saint optimist would say "Loose
Cannon” is a stripped down hard rock gem, but the cynic calls it a
showcase for Vera and Bush, who coincidentally wrote all the music on
the album.

Just like the wildly varying opinions of the fans,
inconsistency is king on "La Raza.” On the downside: "Head On” is a
tepid hard rock puncher with soft hands, particularly the bridge
section, solo, and the intermittent and flat blues licks. The acoustic
guitars, Red Hot Chili Peppers vibe, atmospheric breaks and grunge
feedback on "Black Feet” are all things that Armored Saint isn’t any
good at. "Little Monkey” sounds like it was written by a Green Day cover
band.

But Armored Saint isn’t completely in hock to twenty year
old music clichés. "Get Off the Fence” is a throwback bluesy rocker
that does work well, putting Bush’s straightforward delivery next to
some changing time signatures and chugging riff jams. "Chilled” is just
what the title says but in a good way, and the title track has an
irreverent main riff and another excellent extended jam session which is
fun for everyone.

The bass and vocals alternate driving and
riding shotgun, and the guitars of Jeff Duncan and Phil Sandoval take a
backseat. Gonzo Sandoval’s drums might as well be in the trunk. Duncan
and Sandoval dutifully play the power chord progressions, pedal effects
and solos that were written for them, but the music always forgets and
comes back to Vera’s bass and Bush’s vocals. Vera maintains his distinct
dexterous style, with each note easily heard above all else, and Bush
sounds like he always has – his confident and distinct manner making up
for a lack of range or subtlety. If you were to mistake this for an
Anthrax Jam session from 2004 you would be forgiven.

All in all
"La Raza” showcases a band that isn’t too comfortable and can’t get
their ideas to mesh. Whether this is due to the decade long gaps between
studio sessions and LP releases, the members disparate music projects
and diverging tastes, or just that they had a bad set of days at the
office, it doesn’t really change the end product. It is a testament to
Armored Saint’s experience and underlying skill that half of "La Raza”
would play quite well on the PA during a rock show intermission, but if
they had made Armored Saint a priority over the last ten years we might
have gotten an album that was more than half full of good songs.

1. Loose Cannon 2. Head On 3. Left Hook from Right
Field 4. Get Off the Fence 5. Chilled 6. La Raza 7.
Black Feet 8. Little Monkey 9. Blues 10. Bandit Country